Tag: Orest Pena

Anthony Summers digs deeper on Orest Pena

Orest Pena
Orest Pena, JFK witness (H/T Vasilios)

A faithful reader adds to what is known about Orest Pena, the New Orleans bar owner whose testimony to Congress in 1978 remains secret. The reader quotes from Anthony Summers’ useful reporting in his book, Not  in Your Lifetime. 

“There was the claim of Orest Pena, a New Orleans bar owner who in 1963 himself supplied occasional information to FBI agent Warren De Brueys. Pena was to say he had seen Oswald with Agent De Brueys on “numerous occasions” and that De Brueys threatened him physically before his Warren Commission appearance, warning him to keep quiet.

Summers continues: …

What Orest Pena knew

Orest Pena’s story is particularly compelling because he was trusted by the FBI agents in New Orleans. As a bar owner of Cuban descent, he saw and heard a lot of interest to law enforcement. Oswald had visited his bar in the summer of 1963 in the company of a man Pena described as Mexican. Pena also said he saw Oswald with FBI agent Warren DeBreuys on several occasions. DeBreuys denied this and denigrated Pena as unreliable.

Secret JFK document #1: the Orest Pena interview

To launch the New Year, JFK Facts will highlighting key JFK documents that remain secret in part or in full. We will also be focusing on the effort to make sure that all these documents are made public by the legal deadline of October 26, 2017.

The first is a document that has always intrigued me. As described by Rex Bradford of Mary Ferrell Foundation, it is

A transcript of the HSCA interview with Orest Pena, the New Orleans bar owner who told them that he saw Oswald was palling around with FBI agents in New Orleans. There are actually 3 copies of this 1978 interview with different RIF numbers – all still withheld in full

Source: Mary Ferrell Foundation: Mark the Date

More missing JFK records: the vanishing Church Committee files

Frank Church
Sen. Frank Church

Rex Bradford has illuminates another batch of still-secret JFK records: the files of the Senate committee that conducted the most comprehensive review of U.S. intelligence operations ever.

If you want to understand, the ongoing JFK coverup, you will want to read Bradford’s deep dive on the Missing Church Committee transcripts. It is a useful antidote to the comforting illusion that “the government can’t keep a secret.”

Denied: the JFK records the government doesn’t want you to see

The invaluable WhoWhatWhy has posted a spreadsheet of the 3,600-plus assassination-related records that the U.S. government has never made public.

The existence of the 3,600 records was first reported in JFK Facts last May. The WhoWhatWhy document, obtained by FOIA specialist Michael Ravnitzky, advances the story by providing new details about what exactly the government does not care to share with the American people.  …

Scroll to Top